The late, greatly missed August Wilson wrote 10 plays for the 10 decades of the last century. Some of them come through Los Angeles often enough that we can compare productions, particularly because Mark Taper Forum and Fountain Theatre have a penchant for, and a talent for, Wilson’s works.

The first one he wrote, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” doesn’t seem to get produced often enough, or indeed often at all here. (The Taper publicity department researched and found only one production of record.) Likely that’s because the script requires four of its principal characters to play a specified musical instrument each. So the actors must be of the right age and physicality to limn their very specific roles, plus adeptly play music.

Fortunately for Los Angeles, “Ma Rainey” is in production at Mark Taper Forum, a rare chance to see it, with a flawless cast under the powerful, tender, layered direction of Phylicia Rashad.

The play is about powerlessness, and, being a Wilson play, it’s about powerlessness of the African-American man in a white man’s world. Wilson brings various pressures to bear on the characters: racial, financial, sexual. Differing views on artistry, on acceptance and assimilation, on faith, serve as the flints by which Wilson ignites dramatic conflict.

The play takes place at a recording session in Chicago in the 1920s. Ma Rainey (Lillias White) is the celebrity of her day, pulling such modern stunts as arriving late — blamed on a car crash that miraculously can be repaired in an hour or two, whitewashed by paying off the cop (Greg Bryan) — and demanding a Coca-Cola before she’ll sing a note.

But the play more interestingly revolves around Ma’s four band members.

Their apparent leader is the sensible Cutler (Damon Gupton), the trombonist, who strums guitar to relax. Their wise elder is the pianist, Toledo (Glynn Turman), crafted by Wilson to be the audience favorite. The quick-on-the-uptake bass player is Slow Drag (Keith David). And the young buck is the trumpet player, Levee (Jason Dirden), who spent his latest earnings on a fancy new pair of shoes.

“Things change,” says Toledo at the top of the play, with equanimity born of age and experience. Levee doesn’t like all the directions change is taking, and he’d like to add his own changes but finds brick walls at every turn.

Levee tries to update the band’s musical style, but white management and black stardom block his creativity. Cutler wants to rehearse, recognizing more rehearsal means they finish the session on time. Levee insists they play his new versions of the songs.

Levee tries to romance a pretty gal, but a more powerful, richer interest has snagged her company. And then there’s his relationship to faith, which, we learn, was utterly destroyed in his childhood. What powerlessness Levee has felt since.

Conflict starts small. Toledo, the only literate band member, challenges Levee to spell “music.” Levee spells it wrong. But when none of the other musicians can confirm the correct spelling, Toledo is stymied. Who wouldn’t be? But he picks his battles wisely.

Wilson foreshadows, but Rashad doesn’t want us to see it. She keeps the principal characters steady and, for the most part, thoroughly likeable, while she hews to the script. She enhances the humor with bits of byplay and a cheeky grin at band rehearsals of all eras and skill levels. She fleshes the subtext and adds underscoring to some of the emotional monologues. And she carefully ensures the audience knows whom to focus on at each moment.

On John Iacovelli’s detailed, evocative set, she stages the play somewhat vertically — a comment on status, particularly as the backup band, always underappreciated, gets housed in the basement. How Elizabeth Harper’s white but not harsh lighting illuminates the actors’ faces that far down is remarkable.

Throughout this story about powerlessness, the performers completely capture our thoughts and feelings. And at its stunning, brutal, avoidable yet inevitable end, we’re left understanding that this complex show, demanding so much from its theatermakers, could not have been mounted until the right cast, crew, designers and producers were aligned.